Looking to Him
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Where are your eyes?
Where are your eyes?
Let all the world look to me for salvation! For I am God; there is no other.
God has given us the key for security and safety in a day and age of anything but!
Psychology rightly explains the needs of man in order for him to reach “self actualization” - more fully explained as “a place where one’s potential is fully realized after his or her basic needs are met ie. flesh and soul
At the base of the pyramid are the physical needs. Things such as Air, water, food, heat, cloths, shelter, sleep, health, protection, emotional and financial security.
If these basic needs are not met then the individual will turn to whatever means necessary to acquire them! Jesus spoke extensively about these issues
Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
For in the day of trouble He will hide me in His shelter; in the secret place of His tent will He hide me; He will set me high upon a rock.
As long as my life is still whole within me, and the breath of God is [yet] in my nostrils,
My lips shall not speak untruth, nor shall my tongue utter deceit.
I remember the song, “You are the air I breath, Your holy presence living in me”
“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing?
Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?
Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?
“And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing,
yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are.
And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?
“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’
These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.
Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.
Oh may! All the answers to the basic needs of man but the qui-pro-quo is that only He can provide these things not our own efforts!
That’s where we struggle most! We think that we know how to fulfill these needs by our own efforts and strength so we become trapped of relying on others to be the provider!
Do you see verse 31-32
Therefore do not worry and be anxious, saying, What are we going to have to eat? or, What are we going to have to drink? or, What are we going to have to wear?
For the Gentiles (heathen) wish for and crave and diligently seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows well that you need them all.
The word worry here is the Greek word meaning to “hound” or “anxiety in the face of something to come.
Kittle puts it this way: “the worrying or tormenting cares which belong to human life”
While the pressures of this life are real, they will be never ending until the day we take our last breath!
Kittle again states: Indeed, it is accepted that man is concerned about himself and that he strives after things. But the why and wherefore of his concern and striving are given a new orientation, and so, too, is his understanding of himself and his life.
What a wonderful truth that we can have a “new orientation” in regards to the needs and pressures of life
Jesus said
Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
In Hebrews we read
Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.”
The word abandoned means to “let go” to “leave behind” in agriculture it means to “leave fallow, uncultivated, or thrown down to the ground!”
The commitment of our Savior is to never let us go!
And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.
So the phylacteries the Jews wore were to visually remind them of the promises and faithfulness of God.
We now were the remind of this in our hearts through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit!
In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
He who possesses the Son has that life; he who does not possess the Son of God does not have that life.
I write this to you who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) the name of the Son of God [in the peculiar services and blessings conferred by Him on men], so that you may know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that you [already] have life, yes, eternal life.
You see one cannot reach their full potential if the basics are not covered!
We have a great promise in Christ that He has met all of these needs so that we can move toward His purpose and plan in our lives!
Once these issues are settled in our hearts we can begin to have self esteem that is based on His love for us and not our own effort!
Then as we move to the cognitive level of higher thinking we can reason out the truth of life and His Word!
It is there that we find the beauty of the work of God in our lives and are free from the constraints of the never-ending attempts to please our flesh and allow God to reflect His image in and through us
My friends it all comes done to trust!
As Peter needed to answer a question as Jesus bid him to walk on the water, “do I trust Him?”
“if its you lord, bid me to come!”
Today Jesus’ hand is stretched out to you asking you to come, what will your answer be?